Government staffers walk out of the Russell Senate Office Building, Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Authorities issued a shelter-in-place order and began searching Senate office buildings near the U.S. Capitol Wednesday afternoon amid reports of an active shooter. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Authorities issued a shelter-in-place order and searched Senate office buildings near the U.S. Capitol Wednesday afternoon after a 911 call warned of a possible active shooter. But a floor-by-floor search of the three buildings found nothing, and Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said the cause of the security scramble “may have been a bogus call.”
“We found nothing concerning,” he said. “We got nobody who actually heard shots and certainly no victims.”
The incident comes amid heightened security concerns created by former President Donald Trump’s indictment on charges relating to his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Trump is due in federal court Thursday just a few blocks from the Capitol.
Manger said Washington's multiple law enforcement agencies had been planning “for a couple weeks now” for a possible indictment and had “a security plan in place” in case Trump supporters attempt to disrupt the legal proceedings.
The lockdown Wednesday started when local police received a call around 2:30 Wednesday afternoon warning of a “heavyset Hispanic male wearing body armor” inside the Hart Senate Office Building, one of three structures near the Capitol housing offices for senators and their staffs.
Capitol Police began a search, going floor by floor through the massive buildings.
Inside the Russell Senate Office Building, officers evacuated the hallways and shouted at people to run outside and away from the building. Outside, tourists watched as dozens of police cars surrounded the area. Staff and journalists working in the building received an email instructing them to take shelter in a locked room, remain quiet and silence all electronics.
Manger said about 90 minutes later that all three Senate office buildings had been cleared and the call appeared to have been false.
Both the House of Representatives and the Senate are currently on recess and the office buildings are generally less crowded than usual.
Terrell Jermaine Starr, senior fellow with the Atlantic Council and host of the Black Diplomats podcast joins Cheddar News to discuss Russia's attempt to invade Ukraine.
With an increasing number of teachers and staff calling out sick by the day, the state of Oklahoma is turning to an unusual solution. Republican Governor Kevin Stitt has issued an executive order that permits state employees to work as substitute teachers. Shaily Baranwal, founder and CEO of Elevate K-12, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
On Thursday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed the stance of the U.S. and its allies should Russia make any forays into Ukraine, a seeming response to President Biden's remarks that should Putin engage in something short of a full invasion, there might be some indecision among allied nations regarding what to do. Ariel Cohen, a senior fellow at the think tank Atlantic Council, joined Cheddar to discuss the difficulty faced by Blinken wrangling unity as tensions run high in the region. "There'll be a smaller incursion, and the president implied, there'll be a weaker response because our European allies have created this horrible situation where they are dependent on Moscow for their gas supply," Cohen explained.
During a nearly two-hour press conference on Wednesday, President Biden spoke on his accomplishments and challenges from the first year of his presidency, and what his administration hopes to accomplish in the coming year. However, his approval ratings are underwater as COVID remains a big concern for voters — as does inflation, noted Tom Bevan, co-founder and president of polling aggregator RealClearPolitics. "The public thinks [inflation] is priority number one, and the administration is concerned about it, they talk about it, but they're not spending enough time on it as far as the public is concerned," said Bevan.
The drama surrounding tennis star Novak Djokovic continues after he was deported from Australia over the weekend due to the nation's COVID-19 vaccine requirements. Djokovic was forced to leave the country on the eve of what was to be his first match in defense of his Australian Open title after three judges ruled in favor of his removal and revealed their reasoning for doing so. Adding to his woes, a law recently passed in France is putting his chances of defending his French Open title in jeopardy. The director of Marist's Center for Sports Communication, Jane McManus, joined Cheddar to discuss the ongoing fallout.
As the midterm elections get ever closer, candidates have been getting creative with their campaigns to stick out and to connect with voters. Gary Chambers, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from Louisiana, has definitely attracted attention with an advertisement featuring him smoking a blunt, making a point about the inequity of anti-cannabis laws. "We wanted to bring the seriousness of the moment," he said of the ad. "But we also wanted to make sure that people understand that there are 19 states that are legal right now but Black people and brown people are being over-incarcerated in mostly Southern and Midwestern states in America for cannabis possession."
If some members of Congress have their way, there might finally be a 'TLDR' on sites' terms of service, introduced by the terms-of-service labeling, design, and readability act – or TLDR for short. With this act, users will actually understand what they're agreeing to or the many ways in which their data is being used before pressing 'accept.' J.D. sat down with co-sponsor of the bill and Senator Bill Cassidy, to discuss.
President Joe Biden's first year in office is wrapping up. What has he achieved, and what else remains on the table while the Democrats have control of Washington? Amid an ongoing pandemic and rising inflation, Biden's approval rating is at an all-time low and his party is plagued by infighting. Will he be able to continue pushing key parts of his agenda? Paul Glastris, former Bill Clinton speechwriter & Editor-in-chief of 'Washington Monthly,' joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss the president's achievements in his first year, where he's fallen short, and what he must do in order to get more of his agenda signed into law.
Tech giants Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, and Apple are faced with a bipartisan antitrust legislation effort underway in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The companies stand accused of promoting their own goods and services over smaller competitors on their platforms, holding too much monopolistic power via their app stores and services. Adam Kovacevich, founder and CEO of Chamber of Progress, a technology industry trade group, joined Cheddar to argue that the bills that are being debated currently could end up hurting consumers, rather than helping.
